


if there's a place for me that love has kept protected

by what_on_io



Series: never give all the heart (for love) [6]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Anal Sex, Butt Plugs, Edging, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Denial, References to past dub-con, Rope Bondage, a bit of angst, a veritable feast of endearments, far harbor dlc, it's not hugely explicit but, love love and more love, please heed this tag!, so many pet names honestly, vacation fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26996761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_on_io/pseuds/what_on_io
Summary: "John, you're- No, look at me. You'reeverything. There’s so much about you that I love, John Hancock. Your kindness, even when people don’t deserve it. How gentle you can be when you put your mind to it, and how fierce you can be when you don’t. How you won’t take any shit, and you won’t let the people you care for take it either."A faint part of Hancock can’t believe that it’s Paladin Danse, standing here saying this to him. It all still feels like a fever dream.“If you were anyone else, I’d take you upstairs and undress you so slowly you’d hardly notice it was happening,” Danse says. "But you're not anyone else. So how about you take me upstairs and have your wicked way with me, instead?”Nick meets his brother, Hancock Feels Things™ and Danse is just trying to stay afloat.
Relationships: John Hancock/Nick Valentine, Paladin Danse/John Hancock (Fallout), Paladin Danse/John Hancock/Nick Valentine, Paladin Danse/Nick Valentine
Series: never give all the heart (for love) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/681470
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30





	if there's a place for me that love has kept protected

**Author's Note:**

> Long time no see! This story ran so far away from me I couldn't catch it, so... yeah. It happened. It's written. And this series is finally, after so many years, complete! 
> 
> Please, please heed the dub-con warning. It's not between any of the main characters but Hancock does experience something like a flashback during sex so if that might trigger you, skip over it or click away :) 
> 
> Thanks so much for sticking with this shitshow, and I hope you like this final installation. If not, please don't tell me ;)
> 
> Title is from Dick Allen's 'If You Get There Before I Do', which is a lovely poem and you should go read it!

Tight black fabric stretched taut across his eyes, nothing visible save for a faint ray of light worming its way in from the underside. Rope cinching his wrists painfully behind his back, the knot secured at the base of his spine. Knees digging into the hard wooden floorboards.

Danse’s pulse leaps in his throat.

There’s a dull ache at the back of his neck from the butt of a rifle, and his feet have started to lose feeling from being pinned beneath him for so long. He struggles to keep his breathing even, refuses to let his body - so well trained in denying itself for so long - betray him. He will not show fear. Not here.

“This one’s a synth,” a voice somewhere above him announces. “Fucking metal scum.”

Objectively, it isn’t the worst thing he’s been called, but the barb still stings a little. He isn’t used to it. Has, somehow, grown to expect his true self will be accepted out in the real world.

He was foolish to forget what the Brotherhood taught him.

“What should we do with it, ma’am? Do you want it taken down to the dissection lab with the others?”

“No,” another voice, female, says. “We have enough specimens down there. Besides, it’s too pretty. What use is another scabby synth component when we could have a little fun with it instead? I want it hacked.”

“Another to add to your collection, huh?” the man says with a chuckle. Danse’s stomach seizes. He struggles with the rope but it’s too tight, cutting off the circulation in his hands. If his feet weren’t similarly bound he’d try to stand.

“Code M07901,” a third voice says, crisp and clear. “Override subsidiary functions. Maintain core programs.”

Nothing happens for a moment, and Danse starts to relax a little. Whatever they’re trying to do hasn’t worked. He could still get out of this-

“Come to me, big boy,” the woman says, and Danse feels his body shift without his consent. He doesn’t get very far, trussed up as he is, and performs an unceremonious faceplant at what he assumes is her feet. Something in his lower back twitches, trying to force him up again, to get closer. To obey.

“Oh, you clever thing. Louis, you can take the blindfold off. I want it to see this.”

The fabric is torn from his face, the knot catching on his hair and tugging a clump painfully free. Danse bites his tongue. He will not show fear. He will _not_.

The woman looming above him offers him a shark smile. A halo of red hair flames around her head, and a thick scar bisects her face from jaw to forehead. Her teeth are filed to points.

“Lick,” she says. For a second he’s confused, but his neck bends without his say so, and the pieces click into place when he sees her proffered boot, caked in grime. He tries to rear back but his body won’t listen to his commands, only hers. His tongue makes contact with the toe of the shoe and now there’s bile filling the back of his throat and she’s cackling and it tastes like exactly what it is, _dirt_ , and-

She waits until he’s licked the whole fucking thing clean, retching his way through the ordeal, and when he’s done she nudges him back onto his haunches with a foot to the shoulder. He’s afraid she’ll make him lick the other boot, but she’s silent, appraising him.

“Oh, you pretty thing, you. I’ve half a mind to make you lick somewhere else.” She bares those sharp teeth at him, lip curling into a sneer, and reaches a gloved hand down to yank his head back by the roots of his hair. Danse feels fresh tears spring to his eyes.

“Bring the others in,” she barks at someone behind them, and Danse hears movement but can’t move his head to search for the source.

It doesn’t matter much, because in the end his lovers are hauled in front of him and tossed unceremoniously to their knees. They’re similarly bound, hands secured behind them, but Hancock looks so murderous Danse is surprised he hasn’t ripped through the rope by sheer force of will. He meets John’s eyes first and then turns to Nick, who looks bemused and a little bored; his heart twists at knowing them so well.

“On your feet, synth,” the red-head orders, and again Danse’s body reacts without his say-so. It’s hard to get leverage with his hands still bound, and he’s sweating and grunting and in pain by the time he manages to wrangle himself to standing. He can feel his lovers’ eyes on him, questioning, but then there’s the cool metal of a pistol being pressed into his right hand, the rope sheared quickly with a sharp point that grazes the delicate skin at his wrists, and a female voice saying, “You know what to do, darling. Shoot them.”

Danse’s fingers convulse around the gun. His arm is already moving to aim, even as his brain screeches with fear and pain and _no, no, please not this._ John opens his mouth to call to him but Danse doesn’t hear the words past the roar of synthetic blood in his own ears, only sees his mouth open for an aborted yell as his index finger curls around the trigger and Hancock goes flying back in a spray of scarlet.

His body doesn’t give Nick time to say anything - just twitches the gun onto the older synth and blows a hole through his forehead. No blood this time, just a spatter of oil and the suddenly deafening sound of his fedora hitting the wood floor, and Danse is alone; alone with these sadists and synth-haters and he’s just blown the two people he loved most in the world to smithereens, and the gun’s turning on himself without her permission and-

Danse sits bolt upright in bed, whacking his head on the metal bar of the top bunk as he does so. There’s sweat collecting in the dip at his collarbone and at the backs of his knees and dripping from his forehead into his eyes.

 _Everything’s okay. You’re safe._ His new mantra.

Danse presses a hand to his forehead, finding a bump there, shiny and raw. He allows himself a wince before shrugging off the pain, glances up to check he hasn’t disturbed Hancock. Moonlight is streaming in from a nearby porthole, bathing his bunk in gossamer streaks of silver, and he can just about make out the shape of John’s wrist hanging limply over the chasm of the top bunk. Still out cold.

Danse stays as quiet as possible as he eases himself out of bed. The room sways gently beneath his bare feet and he stumbles - still hasn’t gotten his sea legs, not even after several hours of sailing. Nick had laughed at him as he wobbled onboard, one arm sticking out to catch him in case he fell all the same. Danse has never been on a boat before this, unless he counts Rivet City, and he doesn’t. It makes him wonder why they called the Prydwen an airship - he never felt this queasy while floating so high above Boston.

Nick is still at the helm when he picks his way carefully out onto the deck. He already offered to switch, but the old synth waved him off with his usual excuses - that he doesn’t need sleep and Danse and Hancock do - but Danse knows better. Knows Nick needs some time alone to think before whatever lies ahead.

Danse won’t disturb him, not yet. Not while amber eyes are still skimming the horizon for the first sight of land, though they have at least a few hours to go before they reach port. It’s a personal thing, probably. Finding lost family. Finding someone who knows the same trauma as you do. Danse knows; he got time to sit down with Glory and a few other synths after the escape from the Institute. It wasn’t a perfect meeting by any means - the newly freed synths were skittish and robotic, and Glory was much too much where she sat puffing on a cigarette and shrugging every time Coursers and torture and reprogramming were mentioned. Danse, for his part, tried to avoid mention of the Brotherhood and to extract more information he won’t use about Railroad memory wipes. They all had their own motives for being there, and their own defence mechanisms to boot. The next time would go better.

Besides, Danse has his own thinking to do. He finds a rickety old wooden bench and drags it out into the open, revelling in the feeling of a fine spray of ocean water hitting his face and bare neck. It’s refreshing to be out here, away from the smog of radiation from the Glowing Sea and the clatter of super mutants and raiders. Peaceful. And it gives him time to- to reflect. On the past twenty four hours. On the bar and Rhys and the look on Hancock’s face-

The day had been going so well. That was the kicker. They’d spent a lazy morning holed up in an old Red Rocket, huddled under too many blankets and fooling around like randy teenagers, tossing Danse all the way back to his youth with Cutler and Rivet City and their little junk stall. Nick had cooked them breakfast on a hot plate, and there had been coffee salvaged from the gas station and kisses pressed to Danse’s neck and laughter as they packed up their things. The afternoon’s hike was long and arduous, with enough mirelurks to rustle up a seafood platter big enough for all of Goodneighbor to share twice over, but it’s always easy company just the three of them. Danse found himself humming, even, as they stumbled into the settlement that had built up around Kingsport Lighthouse.

Technically, Nora fixed the place up last year, cleared out the crabs and built strong defences around the border - turrets chugged out smoke from somewhere above their heads, and a guard tower rose high up above the entrance gates. With Nora gone into the depths of the Institute, the settlement spiralled out of Minutemen control and into the hands of rogue traders from Bunker Hill. It was better that way, Danse reasoned, without the reminder of Nora’s betrayal, without Hancock flinching at the sight of her hand-rigged traps and garish neon lights. Better yet, they’d thought to set up a real bunkhouse and a bar on the far side, with food and supply stands clustered around the main lighthouse.

They set themselves up on a cosy table in the corner of the bar, deserving it after a hard day’s work. Nick was hell-bent on hiking the rest of the way to the Nakano house the next morning, so they could set sail in the early hours. Hancock went along with whatever, sharing a canister of Jet between him and Danse, who found himself too relaxed to care much.

“It’ll take us a couple of days by boat,” Nick explained, nursing a foamy pint of beer between his silicone hands. “And that’s if we don’t get hopelessly lost and run out of fuel.”

“You make it sound so easy,” John grumbled, though a dopey smile softened his tone. He reached out to tangle his fingers with Nick’s, stroking his ragged thumb across the back of the synth’s hand, gentle as anything. “We’ve got this, sunshine. Don’t fret.”

“Better make sure we pack a few extra jerry cans, just in case,” Danse chipped in, practicality winning out over the chems. “I’m not much of a swimmer.”

“You didn’t mind much the other night.” John smirked, and Danse flushed beet red at the memory. They’d been by the river -as good an excuse as any for Hancock to strip down to nothing and cannonball into the icy water, yelling at the others to join him. Danse never had much cause for skinny dipping before, but like in everything else with John, he swallowed down his trepidation, folded his clothes neatly to one side, and waded into the cold depths. Nick remained a little more cautious of radwater in his mechanical parts but acquiesced long enough to let it lap up to his waist, laughing at them both when Hancock pulled his arm back for a splash so big it almost knocked Danse over. It had been nice, soothing. A rebirth. One of many, with them.

“Well-“ Danse started to say, cutting himself off when the door to the bar swung open and in strode-

Rhys.

Danse automatically scanned behind him for Haylen, searching for her now familiar shock of red hair, but Rhys’s companion was another man, stocky and well-built, with a dark crew cut and a jagged scar bisecting his face, muscles straining out of his shirt. They took stools at the bar and tossed caps at the barkeep without looking up, and Danse hoped the floor might quietly swallow him.

“Can we get out of here? We should find a bed for the night, it’s almost dark out.”

“Uh, sure, Danse. You got it. Is, uh, everything okay?” Nick asked, silicone forehead scrunching down into a frown.

“Fine,” Danse snapped. “Just anxious to make good time, if we have such a long sail ahead.”

But John, damn him, had snagged sight of Rhys and his new friend. _Don’t dig your heels in,_ Danse prayed, _please. Not for this._

“Let’s get out of here, then,” Hancock said instead, and began to wind his way around the tables to the exit. Danse felt a shiver of guilt pass through him for the assumption, caught John’s hand in his in a silent apology.

They were almost to the door when Rhys’s voice rang out. “Danse? Is that you?”

Shit. Shit fucking damn it, to coin Hancock’s phrase.

He almost ignored it, almost let them all out into the open air to breathe and possibly to run away. But something, an old Brotherhood instinct, a sick desire to please a man who would technically outrank him as a disgraced ex-paladin if such things still existed, won out, and he turned slowly to face his old comrade. Rhys had drawn himself out of his seat and was squaring up to Danse across a couple of tables, head cocked to one side.

“Rhys,” Danse grit out, barely keeping the _Knight_ off his tongue. “How have you been?”

“Don’t waste time on petty pleasantries, synth.”

Danse changed tack, feeling a hundred eyes swivel towards their altercation. “Where’s Haylen?”

“Oh, out somewhere with her new boyfriend, I expect. Disgracing the Brotherhood’s reputation. You know, I think you _inspired_ her. She’s taken up with a synth of her own, one of those disgusting Institute cast-offs. Barely knows its own name.”

“What’s all this talk about synths?” the barkeep grunted, ambling over from where he was cleaning glasses behind the counter. “No synths in my bar. I ain’t taking any risks, Institute or no Institute.” His gaze caught on Nick and he flushed scarlet, stumbling over his words. “No offence to you, Detective Valentine. You’re the exception, course. Thanks again, for sorting that business with my sister. Won’t ever forget it.”

Nick tensed at that. “You know, Josiah, I thought I might’ve taught you a thing or two about discrimination. Don’t judge a book? Ringing any bells? I remember, you flinched at the sight of me when we first met. Thought your views might have changed a little.”

“I’m sorry, Nick, but you gotta understand, the current climate-“

“Well, hate to break it to ya, but my friend Danse here is a big stinking synth,” Rhys broke in loudly, grin spreading like wildfire across his face. Some of the other patrons swung around to level glares at them. “You should probably get him off your property, if you’re worried about security.”

“Oh, shit,” Josiah hissed. “Look, I’m sorry, I really am, but you gotta go. Big man like you, all that mechanical strength to boot - I can’t have that in my bar. C’mon, out. Shoo.” He flapped a dishrag at Danse, shepherding him towards the door he’d been heading out of regardless. Humiliation burning the back of his neck, Danse shouldered his own way outside and broke out into the fresh air. A second later, as he stood panting at the side of the wooden shack, a pint glass whistled by his right ear and clattered into a thousand pieces on the gravel ahead of him.

“What the-“ Hancock started to say, but was cut off by another glass launched in their general vicinity. It smashed against an old mailbox; Danse caught a shard in his ankle and cursed at the bright blooming pain.

A man - middle-aged, bearded, dressed in a ragged varsity jacket and torn sneakers - stumbled out after them wielding a broken bottle. Rhys followed, a bemused smirk curling his lip.

“Fuckin’ synth scum,” the man growled, jabbing the bottle in Danse’s direction. “Your kind ain’t welcome here. Institute might be gone, if you believe the rumours, but they sure as shit still have a hold on you mechanical fuckers.”

Danse stood his ground. He’d been in too many firefights to back off from one idiot looking for a melee. Still, his right hand twitched for his gun, stowed safely away in a holster at his hip. It wouldn’t do to incite further unnecessary violence, of course, though he suspected John and Nick would have his back on how far they could stretch _necessary_...

“Don’t pretend he’s wrong, Danse. You of all things know what they’re capable of,” Rhys interjected. “Big old serpent like that? Who knows just how many heads it’s hiding? The Brotherhood could have saved so many innocent lives, with Maxson at the helm. And instead you murdered him and freed a bunch of indoctrinated spies to carry out the hydra’s wishes when he was gone. You think they didn’t have a hand in that, Danse? You think you weren’t played just like they were?”

The guy holding the bottle faltered, looking between them. Likely he didn’t care too much about the argument’s cause, simply had too much to drink and his adrenaline was already fading, helped along by Rhys’s rambling narrative. Danse slipped his larger frame between the weapon and Hancock, who was closest, just in case.

“One day they’ll call you home, Danse, and you’ll go running back like the slave you are. You think you’re free? You think I did you a favour not shooting you in the head? You’re a fool.”

“Either I’m an Institute machine or I’m a fool, Rhys,” Danse said. “Pick one. Either I’m capable enough of individual thought to make my own mistakes, or I’m a puppet and your words have no effect. Whichever option you choose, your tirade is wasted breath.”

Danse grinned despite himself when he heard Hancock’s low wolf whistle. A slow scarlet colour was creeping up Rhys’s neck to his ears, and his own fingers were inching towards a laser rifle at his back. At this close range, Danse would be blown to bits.

Still, the smile wouldn’t leave his face.

“We’re going, anyway. We have an appointment to keep,” he managed. Reached for his lovers’ hands and started to move them towards the exit.

“You’d thank me for the bullet in your brain once they call you back to them, Danse. There isn’t a limit on what lengths the Institute would go to for power. To keep their slaves in check,” Rhys called after them.

Danse ignored him. Pushed Kingsport’s rusty metal gates open and led the way out, to where the sun was reflecting on the sea.

* * *

Now, though, in the dark, when the sky feels too close and thick curls of fog are clutching at the boat’s underbelly, Danse wonders what will happen if Rhys is right.

He remembers the crack of static electricity as Nick disappeared in front of their eyes, how Hancock bellowed and wailed and none of it brought him back. How Nora changed, how she betrayed so many people who trusted her and came back with a glint in her eye Danse didn’t trust one bit. How he has no memories of his childhood, and how none of it ever struck him as odd before.

Nora knows his recall code. He can imagine how his body would stiffen as she recited it, how he’d kneel at her feet if she asked and lick her boots clean and put a gun to his lovers’ heads-

Maybe he should end it, now, before it there’s a chance for him to ruin it all. It would be so easy to swing himself up onto the railing and pitch his body into the icy depths below. He’s fairly certain synths can drown. They can definitely be dispatched with a bullet to the head, so maybe he should-

A hand on his shoulder startles him. He’d be forgiven for the high-pitched shriek that erupts at the contact, he’s sure. At this time of night, in unfamiliar territory, and is it his imagination or is that fog really getting thicker?

“You okay, sunshine?” It’s John, squinting down at him with his black eyes huge in the moonlight. Danse lets out a huff of breath he can see, and stands to tuck his face into Hancock’s shoulder.

“I am now,” Danse says. “Just a bad dream. It’ll pass.”

“You wanna talk about it?” he asks. When Danse shakes his head minutely, Hancock takes a seat beside him on the damp bench, twining their fingers together. “Alright, then. You don’t have to talk. But when you want to, I’ll be here to listen.” He rummages in his pocket for a canister of Jet that isn’t there, sighs, and watches his own misty breath of curl prettily towards the navy sky. “I still get nightmares sometimes, ‘bout Nick. ‘Bout you. Sometimes about my brother. There’s one, where I’m just a kid again, and he’s fourteen and campaigning for free noodles on his birthday. Only it turns out the noodles are made of ghoul flesh, and he turns to me and offers me a forkful. Says he got them fresh.”

“John, that’s...” Danse begins, but Hancock just shrugs.

“Nah, it is what it is. Y’know, after I turned ghoul, I went back to see him? Had some stupid idea I could change his mind, being his brother an’ all. You know what he said to me, though? He said, I never had a brother. I don’t know any John McDonough. And he slammed the door in my face. By then, ma and pop were long gone. So it was just me and him. I went back to Goodneighbor and tried to forget _I_ ever had a brother.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Danse tells him, tucking Hancock closer into the crook of his shoulder. “You didn’t deserve that. He should have been there for you. Should have protected you.”

“Eh, well. I got you for that now, don’t I?” Hancock sighs again, letting his body flop against Danse’s. “Point is, there’s no shame in bad dreams. Just gotta remember they ain’t real when you wake up, even if they still seem it.” They sit in silence for a few minutes, just breathing in the night air together, until Danse can muster up his own courage.

“Can I ask you something?”

“‘Course you can, sunshine. I’m an open book.”

A lie, of course. There are depths to him Danse is sure he’ll never be able to uncover, cards John clutches so tight to his chest there’s no prying them free. But for this, maybe...

“Do you think it’s wrong... how I am in bed?”

Hancock frowns. Danse can just about make out the quirk at his leathery brow that says he’s amused but trying to hide it, and he feels a blush rise to his own cheeks. “You know. That I sometimes like you to tell me what to do. With my past, and all. Do you think it means I... enjoyed it, being controlled? That I was programmed that way?”

The amusement falls abruptly from Hancock’s face. “No,” he growls fiercely. “I don’t think that’s it at all, baby.” He shifts in his seat, folding one leg over the other and straightening so he can look Danse in the eye. “Look, there’s a difference between subbing and being... controlled, like that. Here, you’re choosing to give up control. You’re trusting me and Nicky to take care of you, and knowing we wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

Danse mulls it over. True, he’s always enjoyed discipline. He wouldn’t have joined the ranks of the Brotherhood if he didn’t like having order to fall back on, someone else to take the reins. It was a comfort. A direction. But the first time Hancock tied his wrists and spanked his ass, it was like a fire catching. Like Danse found whatever he’d been searching for all this time.

Was he predisposed to it? Does it matter?

“We don’t have to do it that way in future, not if you’re not into it,” Hancock says gently. “I know we never really talked about it. I guess I just assumed, after the first time...”

“No, it’s not that,” Danse says, too quickly. “You didn’t push me into anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I enjoy letting you take control. And I’ve enjoyed everything we’ve done, only...”

“Only?”

“What if they are pulling the strings?” Danse chokes out. “What if Rhys is right? What if they’re biding their time, hiding somewhere deeper underground than last time? Enough scientists got out, they could-“

“The Institute’s gone, Danse,” Hancock says, in a tone that brooks no argument. “All their shit was destroyed. It’d take decades - hell, centuries - to build all that back up. We blew it all to smithereens and you’re _safe._ ”

“For now,” Danse mutters.

“Their records are gone. Even if some delusional idiot on a power trip tried to set the whole thing up again, any trace of you, or of M7-97, is gone for good. You _and_ Nicky.”

Deep down, he knows Hancock’s right. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. It’s just… today. And the fog. And the boat. I’ll be fine at sunrise,” Danse tells him, wondering if he means it. The ghoul’s silent for a few minutes, head tipped back to look at the stars and gathering fog that Danse surely isn’t imagining anymore.

“Y’know, there is something we could try, if you wanted,” John says just as Danse is starting to fall into a doze.

“Oh yeah?” he manages, barely lifting his head from where it’s drooped on his lover’s shoulder.

“Yeah. Leave it with me.”

Danse does.

* * *

Far Harbor isn’t anything like what Hancock expected, when they arrive a good few hours later. For a start, there’s enough fog bordering the port to conceal the most furious radstorm. Dawn broke just as they anchored the boat, but it’s still impossible to see much beyond the row of buildings by the town gates. The residents are mostly pissed off, though he’s glad nobody bats an eye at Nick’s metal parts or Hancock’s own ragged flesh after what happened at Kingsport. They make it ashore without fanfare, just a few whispers of _newcomers_ following them up the stone steps, and set about finding somewhere to sleep.

The Last Plank, which doubles as a bar and an inn, is the only place with rooms free. Guy behind the counter doesn’t blink when they request quarters for three, just takes their caps and jerks his head towards the stairs. Hancock follows behind Danse’s large frame, hunched over with exhaustion, and isn’t surprised when the other man flops unceremoniously on the huge bed that takes up most of the room. At least it’s plenty warm in here. A few breaths later and Danse is snoring gently, muffled by the pillows.

Nick’s more reserved, shucking off his coat and hat and dumping his pack by the window. He gazes out at the bustling settlement below, amber eyes reflected back in the glass. “Wonder whereabouts this long lost sibling is, in all this fog,” he muses. Hancock moves behind him, arms around the synth’s waist, and tucks his chin into Nick’s shoulder, the way he usually does before wiggling his tongue in the bundle of wires below his jaw.

They’re all too on edge for anything sexual right now, though, so he just holds him. Presses a kiss to his silicone cheek, hums happily when one of Nick’s hands goes up to brush along his own face.

“Maybe it’ll ease off,” Hancock suggests, though it doesn’t seem likely. Mist this thick would be dangerous to wade through, with Atom knows what lurking out there. “Else we’ll have to find a local.”

“A guide’s not a bad idea,” Nick says. “But see those metal things by the gates? Looks like they’re warding off the worst of it.”

Hancock follows Nick’s finger, spies a few spindly metal poles emanating a bright white light. “You think there’s more of them around?”

“I’d say so.” Nick eases himself around so they’re face to face, a soft smile blooming on his lips. “Hello, you.”

“Hey yourself,” Hancock whispers, feeling romantic. Blame it on the fog, on the journey, on how much this feels like a fucking honeymoon, but truth is it’s probably just Nicky and his easy smile turning him into a big ol’ sap. He tugs Nick closer by his shirt collar for a kiss, tongue darting out to brush against the other man’s lips until he gives in and lets his mouth fall open, edges still curled up in a grin. After a few moments pressed together, close as could be without clothes coming off, Nick catches both Hancock’s elbows gently and eases him back.

“As lovely as this is, I might go downstairs while there’s still daylight, ask around. See if I can find a map. You stay with Danse. Sounds like he needs someone, right now.”

“You heard, then?” John asks, though he’d suspected as much. Nick’s quiet on his feet when he wants to be, and subtle, too. Hancock knows he wouldn’t say any of this if the big man was awake. “You’re always welcome to join us, y’know.”

“I know,” Nick says, still smiling. “But I think he’d be more comfortable just the two of you. Just for now. Stick a sock on the door or something, will ya?”

Hancock gives him a mock salute, watches him replace his hat on his head, shrug back into his coat, and head out, clicking the door quietly shut behind him. He sits carefully on the edge of the bed so’s not to wake Danse, drops his head into his hands so his tricorn tumbles into his lap. And dammit if he knows what he’s supposed to do now.

It sounds stupid even in his own head, but truth is, Hancock ain’t much of a sub. The idea of authority makes him antsy, even in close quarters, and as much as he enjoys Danse’s own weight pinning him to the mattress, he ain’t sure it’ll be the same with ropes, with the kind of ruthless organisation he’s sure a former paladin will bring to bed as a dom. How Hancock will have to bow and scrape and call him _sir_.

Still. Do not unto others, etcetera. Besides, it ain’t like he hasn’t done it before - mostly with faceless men in Goodneighbor warehouses before he took up his mayoral position, and a few after. Before he really got to grips with the ghoul thing, when he was certain the only fuckin’ he’d get for the rest of his life would be accompanied by snarls of disgust and bruised thighs, splinters burrowed neatly into the still-flaking flesh of his knees. And sure, he’d enjoyed some of it. Enjoyed kneeling for the kinder ones, didn’t mind being smacked around for a bit as long as he got to come after it. And with Danse…

Danse had taken him by surprise, the first time. Hancock had never pictured himself takin’ up with a soldier type, never spied a set of power armour and imagined getting hot and heavy with whoever was snug inside. He swore he’d never let himself fall back into his old ways. But enough cross words, combined with whatever lurked behind the other man’s hateful gaze, promising more to him than first appeared, and he was putty between the big man’s hands. For Danse, Hancock didn’t mind how he ached being pressed hard into the wooden bed frame, how he still had teeth marks for days from the paladin’s mouth. He at least got to fall into his devil-may-care persona, bite his lip and push Danse’s buttons and slide his hands where he knew they weren’t wanted.

Regardless. He can do this again, properly, for Danse. For how far they’ve come. To see some of that tension ease from his shoulders. Fuck, it’d say something about him if he couldn’t give up control for a couple hours, after all his grumbling about the sticks up so many Brotherhood asses.

The sound of Danse stirring breaks Hancock from his reverie. He toes off his boots, pulls himself further up the bed to card fingers through his lover’s hair, loose and longer than it used to be, falling into his eyes. Hancock tucks a lock behind his lover’s ear, reaches down to nibble an earlobe.

“Where’s Nick?” Danse asks, blinking blearily around the room.

“Out,” Hancock murmurs. “Doin’ his thing.”

“Oh,” Danse breathes. “Is this about earlier?”

Damn, even groggy the man has him pegged. And Hancock’s not usually shy, but for the life of him he can’t find the right words for what he’s offerin’. He inhales, his breath trembling with it, forces his fingers to keep still on the bedsheets. “Yeah. See, I was thinkin’… It might help if we switched.”

“Switched?”

“Yeah. Y’know. You take charge for a bit. Thought you might miss all that soldierin’.”

“Oh. _Oh_ ,” Danse says. He shuffles a bit until he’s propped up on an elbow, squinting at Hancock in the cloaked sunlight that filters into the room. “And you’d… want that kind of thing?”

“I wouldn’t be opposed,” Hancock says, making the words as close to the truth as he can manage. “Would you? That’s what this is about, sunshine. I don’t wanna do anything you ain’t into.”

“I… could be.” There’s a pause while he mulls it over, searching Hancock’s face for something he sure hopes isn’t showing. “Did you bring anything?”

Shit, here it comes. Something unwelcome swoops low in Hancock’s belly, but he forces himself to swallow it down. “Yeah.” Of course he had. They had no idea how long they’d be holed up here, so there’s probably too much of it - stuff he found squirrelled away still pristine in old-world packaging from back-alley stores, a few of their usual props sneaked from Nick’s office.

“Okay,” Danse echoes. “If you’re sure.”

“I am,” Hancock lies, feeling like a prize idiot. He’s well versed in keeping such things off his face, though, and thankfully Danse doesn’t pick up on how his fingers have curled tightly into the covers. “Put some of that Brotherhood experience to good use."

“Wait here,” the other man says with a surprising finality that for some reason Hancock hadn’t expected. It’s been a while since he’s seen Danse so decisive in the bedroom, so many wrong-footed months as the shock of his true identity settled in. Now it’s arousal throbbing in John’s abdomen, a little squirmier than he’d like but there all the same. He lets his eyes flutter shut.

“You’ll have to tell me if there’s anything you don’t like,” Danse says, breathless, as he dumps a bundle of props onto the bed beside Hancock’s feet. “And… maybe what some of this is for.”

Hancock huffs a laugh, swings an arm casually behind his head for a pillow, cocking his legs suggestively. “I’m good with anything, sweetheart. We can freestyle.”

“Still - we should have a word. You know. For if you want to stop.”

Never has Hancock ever been treated so much like crystal while giving someone his bedroom eyes. “A safeword?”

“Yes. I- you’re supposed to have one, right?”

Looks like Danse has thought all of this through a hell of a lot more than Hancock has. He wants to kick himself, for not offering the same to Danse, for dragging him into this with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop.

“Colours, then,” Hancock croaks. “Red for stop. Yellow for slow down.”

“Alright,” Danse agrees. He contemplates the pile on the bed for a moment, distractedly scratching the stubble at his chin. “We’ll start with this,” he announces after a moment, uncoiling a couple metres of rope. It’s the nice stuff, silky and red, not the scratchy kind for catching criminals. Hancock forces his suddenly stiff neck to nod.

“Wherever you want me, sunshine.”

It transpires that where Danse wants him is spread-eagle on the mattress, naked, limbs secured tightly to their requisite bedposts. The man’s fingers are deft at the knots, and Hancock really shouldn’t be surprised by now, but it’s nice to know that Brotherhood training is good for something prettier than binding up hostages.

“Is that okay? Not too tight?” Danse asks. Hancock flexes his wrists, tries to twirl his ankles but can’t get enough movement. His heart leaps in his chest. He’s so exposed like this, intimately aware that Danse can see every ghoulified inch of him stretched taut on the bed.

“S’fine.”

“Good,” Danse hums, presses a lingering kiss to Hancock’s lips before returning to the pile of toys. “You look beautiful like this, you know. I can’t decide what to do with you.”

“Anything,” Hancock croaks, meaning it. Shit, but he loves him.

“Anything, hmm? I’ll hold you to that.”

The words send a not-unpleasant shiver down Hancock’s spine. When he comes back to himself Danse is already kneeling at his side with a piece of cloth draped over one hand. “A blindfold, huh?” Hancock asks, going for cocky and not quite managing it. Still, he lifts his head obediently so Danse can wind the cloth around his eyes and secure it, cutting off his vision.

Which is fine. For Danse, it’s fine.

“What to do with you…” the other man teases. Hancock feels Danse skim a finger down his chest, plucking greedily at one nipple and then the other. Despite himself, Hancock has swelled to full mast, cock hanging heavy between his thighs, begging to be touched.

“It’s up to you, sunshine.”

_Did I say you could speak? Better shut your trap, ghoul, before I shove my cock so hard down your throat you’ll-_

“Shouldn’t that be ‘sir’?” Danse says, and thank fuck there’s a laughing lilt to his voice. Hancock clears his throat, wets his lips with a nervous tongue.

“It’s up to you, _sir_ ,” he corrects, feeling the humiliation trickle down to the tips of his nine remaining toes. Danse hums though, pleased, and then there’s the strange feeling of something trailing across his skin, pooling for a second in the hollow pit of his stomach before moving down to brush over his cock, and then-

The flogger comes down over his left thigh, just hard enough to sting.

“Ooph,” Hancock narrates, because he can. Because there’s nobody here to tell him not to. Because Danse wouldn’t, not without checking first, not after everything-

A beat passes, then Danse flicks the flogger again over the sore spot, a little more bite to it this time. Hancock exhales through gritted teeth.

It goes on like that for a little while, with Danse alternating his strokes between both Hancock’s thighs, then flicking higher to thwack at his nipples, sending thrilling tendrils of agony pinballing between them. Hancock’s half-surprised he still has enough feeling there for it to hurt.

“Is this okay?” Danse asks, because of course he does. “Or too much?”

“S’good,” Hancock tells him. “Stings.”

_It’ll do more than sting in a second, you filthy monster. Look at you, spread out for me. Loving it. You’re almost feral, aren’t you, fucking disgusting-_

“Let me know if you want to stop, alright?” Danse is saying above him. Hancock feels the synth’s mouth soothing over his wounded left nipple, the right tweaked between an index finger and thumb. “Could I- There are clamps, right? Can I-“

It’s endearing, how shy he still is. Somehow Hancock hadn’t expected this hesitance, had expected them to fall back into their earlier roles like shucking on familiar clothes. He wants his arms free so he can wind them around the other man’s back and tug him close, pepper kisses to his neck and shoulder-blades the way he knows Danse likes.

“Yeah. Like I said - anything. Love you,” Hancock pants, because he needs to hear it back.

“I love you too,” Danse says immediately. “So much, John, you have no idea.”

Hancock does. He feels it swelling inside him, just this side of overwhelming, how much he feels for this man. It makes his breastbone ache.

Danse disappears briefly. Hancock can hear him rummaging through the pile until he finds what he’s looking for, and braces himself for the fresh bite of pain. It doesn’t come immediately - there’s Danse’s tongue swirling around the nipple again, with just a hint of teeth, and then a hand wrapped tight around his cock. He bucks into the touch, needy as anything, feels Danse reach down to cup his balls and could cry with it, after leaving his prick neglected for so long-

“Keep still for me,” Danse instructs. Then the clamps are attached, one after the other, but he hardly feels it, just two muted snips of pain. Hancock keens as Danse works his dick, not letting up even as John shudders beneath him, craving release, _needing_ it.

_So fucking desperate. You’re fucking lucky I’m here, bitch. Can’t see anyone else queueing up to fuck a monster like you-_

“So beautiful, John,” Danse tells him. “Who knew you’d be so good at following orders after all, hmm?”

“Yes, sir,” Hancock says, imagining how Danse’s face will light up when his mouth curls around the word. It’s no big sacrifice. He can do this, call him sir and stay still while Danse works him over, his calloused palm returning to wrap around Hancock’s prick, stroking just the other side of gentle.

“You’re doing so well, my love.” Danse’s voice is barely a whisper, gravelly and deep where the words fall over Hancock’s skin. He bucks his hips into his lover’s hand, seeking more friction, more _anything._

Then: “I said _still,_ John.” Danse lands a smack to his thigh, over where the flogger hit, and Hancock barely keeps the snarl off his tongue. He stills, forcing his ass back against the warm sheets. “That’s better. Don’t move until I say so.”

_Don’t move a fuckin’ muscle, ghoul. Not that you’ve got many of ‘em left. You don’t wanna find out what happens to freaks who don’t listen-_

“Fuck,” Hancock says without meaning to. He feels his arousal dip at the memory, would do anything to exorcise it from his fucking head, but he sees in vivid technicolour how the man - some guy he picked up in a bar years ago, no name or even a real face to go with it - had fucked him with only his spit to ease the way, how he’d left Hancock hogtied on the floor screaming himself hoarse for help ’til the next morning, when Daisy came and took pity on him.

“John?” Danse is asking. Hancock startles, takes stock of his limp prick and the confusion in his lover’s voice, how the clamps have been quickly removed from his nipples without him noticing. “Are you okay?”

Hancock can’t muster an answer. He tries to nod, because this isn’t even about _him_ , this is about making Danse feel better, but _shit_ he can still feel the man’s breath on his neck, how he’d gripped his chin roughly in place while he came, how he hadn’t even looked back-

The blindfold is pushed carelessly up from over his eyes, and then Danse is leaning over him with a terrified look on his face. Hancock blinks owlishly up at him, overcome by the sudden light and the breath returning to his lungs.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Why did I-“ Danse looks furious, and Hancock feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. He’s really gone and fucked this up now. “John, you were having a panic attack!”

“I was?” he asks. He’s fairly certain he’d know if he was having one of those. But, oh, there’s a pain in his chest that has nothing to do with pinched nipples, and his breathing is coming in short bursts, and holy fuck, are there _tears_?

He doesn’t realise Danse has untied him until he curls his arms to his chest without hinderance. He draws his knees up to join them, huddled in a small ball on the huge bed, feeling like an idiot and a bastard both, for ruining this after all his bluster.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“What- Don’t apologise to me!” Danse erupts, incredulous. “I’m the one who should be saying sorry! I should have stopped, we never should have-“

“You did stop,” Hancock points out, needing to erase the agony from his lover’s voice. “You stopped. You didn’t force me into this, Danse, sweetheart. And I’m fine, really. Let me get you off, okay?” He scrabbles for Danse’s jeans, still fastened, though doing a bad job of disguising his own dwindling erection.

“John!” Danse snaps, taking both Hancock’s wrists in his big hands and holding them in his lap. “Don’t. Tell me what this is about.”

“Nothing,” Hancock grunts. “I’m fine.” Because fuck if he’s admitting all this to Danse, who called him nothing but _ghoul_ for so long, who never let him take off his shirt while they fucked, who probably still sees him as an abomination somewhere deep down, who might think he _deserved_ it-

“John. Sweetheart. Please, talk to me,” Danse says now, but Hancock can’t look at him. Instead he springs up off the bed and starts gathering his clothes, drags his molten legs into his trousers and tugs his shirt over his shoulders, does up the buttons one-handed, already reaching for the frock coat and boots. He can’t be naked right now, needs his armour in the face of whatever emotional onslaught this has turned out to be.

“Don’t run away from me, Hancock,” Danse says - no, _orders,_ because the gravitas is still there in his voice and he sounds like he used to, like a soldier, and Hancock needs to get the fuck _out._

“I ain’t runnin’.” He swipes his hat off the table, fumbles in his pockets for chems and only comes up with a battered pack of smokes. Which’ll do, under the circumstances, at least until he can get out of this room and snag something stronger from one of the merchants downstairs. His hand is on the doorknob when Danse halts him with a careful touch to his elbow, but he jerks away all the same.

“You can’t just- just _go._ We need to talk about this, John-“

“There’s nothin’ to talk about,” Hancock snaps, and flees.

* * *

It’s almost nightfall - or whatever passes for it here - when Hancock slinks back to the room, tail between his legs. Danse has been sitting up with Nick for the last couple of hours, playing cards that he can’t concentrate on. He’s lost four hands so far, watching the fog drift closer to the windows and listening to the far-off roar of some nautical beast or other, and wondering where the hell John has got to.

Nick spent the day canvassing for information, came back with directions to a synth colony called Acadia and plans to embark on the perilous journey inland tomorrow. Danse lets Valentine’s story distract him, loses himself in the mechanical cadence of his other lover’s voice, his quiet reassurance that Hancock always finds his way home one way or another. He’s picked up a case, too, at some old hotel a little ways away. Offers to take Danse along on the investigation, tangles their fingers together across the table and doesn’t even try to peek at Danse’s cards, though with his lax hold it would be easy to accomplish.

“I’m not sure I’d be much use unless you need backup firepower,” he says, shuffling the deck of cards between trembling fingers. “But I’d be honoured to see more of what you do.”

“Eh, well, it ain’t always too excitin’. Most of the time I’m just hiking across the city searchin’ for someone who’s doing their best not to be found. This time’s a little different, though - an old fashioned murder mystery, sounds like. We might make a sleuth outta you yet.”

They play in silence for a few moments, Danse sipping from a beer mug Nick brought up for him and Nick puffing on a cigarette. Eventually Nick breaks it, asks gently, “So, you wanna talk about it? Whatever happened between you and John?”

“He just- bolted,” Danse says in a rush, eager to get it all out into the open. If he stops lying to himself for a minute, he would like nothing more than for Nick to absolve him of the guilt clawing at his insides when he thinks of the panic in Hancock’s face, how he’d yanked the door open and took the stairs three at a time, leaving Danse half-naked and alone.

“I don’t know what I did wrong, exactly. Just that he wasn’t… comfortable. He was panicking, like-“

“Like?” Nick prompts.

“Like something bad had happened, before. Like he was… remembering.” Danse says this slowly, testing the words before they emerge, and somehow it all fits. He should’ve seen it, should’ve picked up the signs, never should have taken John up on his offer in the first damn place.

“Shit,” Nick says, voice low. “I mean, I knew what a state he was in when he first left Diamond City. He came back a couple times, to me when his brother wanted nothing to do with him. And I know he struggled at first, with what he was, but he was always so full of bluster, I…”

“I’m angry with him,” Danse says, shame burning up his neck even as he recognises the words are true. “I know it’s not fair. But he should have told me, or at least shouldn’t have pushed himself to do something he knew full well he wouldn’t enjoy.”

“Yeah, well, he’s stubborn like that,” a rough voice says from the doorway. Danse whirls round to find Hancock standing there, hand on a hip, hat at an angle. For a moment he's so overcome with relief that he can hardly move.

“Good of you to join us, doll,” Nick says without looking up from his cards. “Get up to anything fun out there?”

“Ah, y’know. Met a few folks. Dabbled in a few experimental chems. Accidentally got into a brawl with a sea monster. The John Hancock special.”

“Sounds like it took it out of ya. Why don’t you come sit?” Nick suggests, tone still infuriatingly light. Danse wants to shake the both of them, demand they address the elephant stumbling about the room, but… Nick knows John better. Knows exactly when he doesn’t want to be watched so closely, when to talk it out and when to stay quiet. Begrudgingly, Danse follows his lead.

“Should I deal you in?” he asks, indicating their game. John just shrugs, takes off his coat and tosses it over the back of his chair before sinking into it.

“I’m easy either way,” he says. Lights a cigarette like nothing ever happened. Danse gathers up the cards, shuffles, and deals. They play for a few minutes in silence, Hancock and Nick passing the cigarette between them. Danse glares down at the cracked wooden tabletop like it’s done him a personal disservice, wanting a toke but too proud to ask.

“You two hungry?” Valentine asks, reaching to bet another handful of the pre-war bills they’ve stacked up on the desk. “I was thinking of swinging by the bar downstairs for a refill anyway. Could see what’s on the menu, if you like.”

Hancock can no doubt see through what is at best a pitiful excuse, but he nods anyway, fumbling in his trouser pocket to shove some caps into Nick’s hand. “I could eat.”

Another lie, Danse recognises dimly, because Hancock barely eats anything even when they force him to sit down to a meal, but he senses now isn’t the time to point that out.

Danse manages to keep his mouth shut for a solid five seconds, until Nick’s footsteps fade away down the stairs, and then he rounds on John.

“Are you okay?” He cringes at the urgency in his voice, wishes he had Valentine’s reserve. But Hancock dumps his cards on the table and looks Danse full in the face. He’s half expecting a slap, fully certain he’d deserve one, but-

“I’m sorry,” John says. Danse splutters out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding.

“You don’t-“

“Don’t say I don’t need to apologise. You already admitted you’re mad. I get it. I should’ve safeworded.”

Danse barely keeps his jaw from dropping, knows what it’s taking for John to admit weakness like that, when he’s usually the brave one. Danse, whose brief encounters before him and Nick have been confined to darkened bunkrooms and communal showers, has always been on the back foot when it comes to sex. Hancock’s always vibrant, though, cocky and sure of himself, and Danse foolishly had never thought to look past that.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Danse asks, not sure how he’ll handle it if Hancock says no.

“No.”

“Ok-“

“But I will.” John sets both his hands on the table to fiddle with a flip lighter, watching the flame catch and snapping it shut again, repeating the motion until the fire is just a blur of orange. “It ain’t a secret, what I look like,” he says after a minute. “I see it in the mirror every mornin’. There were mornin’s, though, when I first turned and my skin was still sloughing off and I could still see the whites of my eyes, that I’d forget. I’d stroll outside and run into Vaulties or Brotherhood or worse, and they’d be gunnin’ for me, and I’d only remember why after I’d bolted.” Danse’s brow creases into a frown. He wonders how this is relevant, but more than that wonders if he’d be shrugged off if he touched Hancock’s arm.

“I hated myself.” John’s voice is a whisper. “For a long time. Everything that happened with Vic and his goons made everything worse, and even though afterwards I had the outfit and the slogans and the mayoral balcony I sometimes felt like I didn’t deserve it. And I guess I thought the only folks who’d be willin’ to spend the night, to take me out of my own head for a bit, would see the same thing I did. A monster.”

Danse almost scoffs. Can hardly reconcile any of it with the man he knows Hancock to be, suave and ruthless and unflinching in the face of judgement. But then he remembers how he used to tuck his shirt tight around himself when Danse tried to undress him, how sometimes he won’t look either of them in the eye when he’s doing his _sexy king of the zombies_ spiel. How he’d shivered in Danse’s arms when he told him to keep still, how his prick had gone limp and Danse could almost hear the pulse slamming in his throat.

“I never told any of ‘em to stop, or anythin’. So it wasn’t... what you’re thinking. Mostly I let ‘em call me names and slap me around. One guy, though, he really hated what I was. Spat on me and left me tied up on the floor. Heh, a little surprised he didn’t shoot me in the head on his way out the door, to be honest with ya.”

“John,” Danse says, voice cracking. “I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want you to. Didn’t want anyone to. So I tell ‘em the high was worth it if they ask, and that’s usually enough.”

Danse can’t help but ask: “And was it? Would you do it again?”

“Honestly?” Hancock asks. “Yeah. ‘Cause if I hadn’t gone ghoul I doubt you’d have looked at me twice. And it helped Nicky see himself a little better, too. So yeah, if I had a do-over, I’d still take the chems. And the high _was_ pretty fucking good.”

Danse considers this, tries to weigh up the best words in his head. He’s not good at this, at _talking_ , but then neither is John, and someone needs to be the one to say it. “You’re not a monster.”

Hancock huffs a laugh. “I know. Just sometimes wonder if other people do.”

“I do.” Danse takes a deep breath, fiddles with his empty pint glass, wishing he had a beer mat to tear up. He’s never been a fidgety man, before Hancock, always knew when to steel himself for agony. But they never covered this bone-deep itch in basic training. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way, before. I was a bigot, and there’s no excuse for that, but… I’ll spend every day for the rest of my life making it up to you, John.” He sighs. “Thank you for trusting me with this. I wish I knew how to make it better, but unless you know where those- those _fuckers_ live… In which case I’d be very happy to go and rid the Commonwealth of a few real monsters.”

“Appreciate it, sunshine,” Hancock says. Danse finally lets himself reach out and take his hand, giving his fingers a squeeze before bringing them up to his mouth to graze a kiss across the knuckles.

“I’m not sure I’m cut out for domming, either,” Danse admits. “I think maybe I should stick to being the obedient one in bed.”

“Eh, you were doing fine.” John smirks. “And I’m sure Nicky would be willin’ to sub for ya, if you ever wanna try again.”

Danse can’t imagine such a thing, can’t keep the surprise out of his tone. “Nick? Really?”

“Man’s got hidden depths,” John says, laughter creasing the corners of his eyes. “Really. You should talk to him about it.”

“Talk to who about what?” Nick says, appearing in the doorway balancing two trays. His speech is muffled by a pack of snack cakes clenched between his teeth, and when he puts the trays down Danse is greeted by the sweet aroma of brahmin stew, thick gravy seasoned with herbs, and it smells so good he could down the whole bowl without thinking.

“Ah, we’ll tell you later.” John winks, and goes for his own bowl. For once he eats with relish, clearing his bowl even before Danse does, like maybe their conversation has done him some good. They split the snack cakes with Nick, who spends the meal smoking and looking over his case notes from the day, and then afterwards they lie twined together in the big bed and Danse watches the fog out the window and lets the crash of waves against the rocks lull him into sleep.

* * *

Nick’s first thought upon meeting his brother is _Christ, how can they stand to kiss a face as creepy as all that?_

Which isn’t a great start.

But there’s no denying it, DiMA is funky looking, with Nick’s face and spiky metal instruments poking out of him every which way. What makes it worse is how the back of his head is just… missing, like he just cracked his skull plates off and replaced them with external hardware.

Nick lets his hand be shaken, feeling Hancock and Danse hovering awkwardly behind him while DiMA explains their escape, how he couldn’t bear to see Nick subjected to such cruelty, how they forced personality after personality into his synthetic mind to see which would stick. He meets Faraday, who is… something, to DiMA, who fusses over him and his hardware and stutters through an introduction before ducking back into his lab. He listens to DiMA theorise about their maximum memory capacity, how he has everything stored on external hard drives and holotapes, how Nick will eventually forget his lovers’ faces just as he’d forgotten DiMA’s.

Some base part of him wants to reject it, to rail and shout until DiMA admits he’s lying, that Nick had only forgotten him in the confusion of the legion of personalities foisted upon him. But DiMA just gives him that infuriatingly benevolent smile, places a hand identical to Nick’s in the crook of his elbow, and thanks him for coming all this way to see him.

“Actually, there is another matter,” Nick starts. “I’ve been sent here to look for a girl. Kasumi Nakano. Her family are worried about her.”

“Kasumi came here seeking community,” DiMA says. “And I do believe she found it. The girl is a synth - she belongs here.”

“Do you have proof of that?”

“Do I need it? I have proof that she’s happy, that she feels like Acadia is home. You may speak with her if you wish, but I doubt she’ll be willing to return to her old life.”

“Her parents are frantic,” Nick says, just to argue. To see if he can make DiMA twitch, just a little, lose some of that gentle composure that for some reason is making his synthetic blood boil. “She left without a warning. She’s their little girl.”

“Is she? Or is she a synth, raised to believe she’s a human? We cannot deny our true natures, Nick - why shouldn’t third-generation synths be afforded the same freedom?”

“I wouldn’t call this freedom.” Nick gestures to his face, his rubbery hands, the hole at his neck.

“Freedom to know oneself,” DiMA replies, cool as ever. “Your friends, behind you. Is there proof that they’re human?”

“Doubt they make synthetic ghouls,” Hancock chips in, tipping his tricorn ironically at DiMA. “Can’t see there’s much of a market for ‘em.”

“If you say so. And you?” DiMA asks, turned to Danse. The big man shifts his weight uncomfortably, thumbs hooked into the belt loops of his jeans. Nick feels for him, wants to reach out and defend him from what probably feels like a verbal assault. “Are you human? Can you say it for certain?”

“No. I’m a synth,” Danse admits. “I didn’t know until fairly recently.”

“Ah.” A knowing smile splits DiMA’s face, like he’s caught Nick out. “And how did you feel about being kept in the dark for so long? A lifetime, as it were?”

“I do wish I’d known,” Danse says. “But my circumstances were different. I was a paladin with the Brotherhood of Steel. If I’d known, I think I’d have made different life choices. But this girl… she’s accepted as she is, however she is, by her family. They wouldn’t ostracise her even if she were a synth.”

It’s true. Nick caught Danse having a quiet word with the Nakanos when they went to pick up the boat, saw their grief-stricken eyes, how they held onto each other as though they’d be swept up in the tide otherwise. Danse told them in a low voice how he reacted when he found out his true nature, how he was a better man for it, and they’d listened, nodded, said they’d do anything to have their daughter home safe, synth or not.

DiMA mulls it over, turns back to his screens and says over his shoulder, “As I said. You may speak with her if you wish. It is not my place to speak Kasumi’s mind for her, and it shouldn’t be yours either.”

“And if she wants to go home?” Nick asks. “You’ll let her?”

DiMA flashes a look that could be a glare, if Nick was a little more imaginative, at him. “If she wishes to leave, then she may go. No-one is a prisoner here.”

No-one except DiMA, maybe, Nick thinks as they wind their way downstairs, stuck in his fortress on this little island with nothing but the fog and Faraday for company. Valentine’d take the Commonwealth any day.

* * *

It turns out Kasumi holds suspicions of her own. However adamant she is about her synthetic nature, arms crossed and jaw set, she’s certain something foul is afoot, and Nick could sing knowing that his discomfort in his brother’s presence isn’t entirely unfounded. That he isn’t just jealous of DiMA’s easy acceptance of himself, how he looks at Nick as though he’s a sullen little boy worthy of bemusement and pity and not much else.

That’s the only upside, though, because the revelation takes them trekking across the island to make nice with the Children of Atom, who are kooks of the highest order. Nick’s had a few dealings with them before, back on the mainland, but the islanders are a completely new breed, throwing themselves into the radioactive fog with a fervour he’s sure will get the majority of them killed before the year’s out.

Turns out DiMA’s not the saint he purported to be. Turns out, in fact, that he’s a filthy rotten murderer, playing God just as the Institute before him had. Replaced Far Harbor’s captain with a synth of his own making, and planned to do the same with the High Confessor. Nick confronts him, sees him grovel, guilt-stricken, and wishes he could turn on a heel and leave someone else to deal with his brother’s mess.

But the man has at least brokered a tentative peace between warring factions, something Nick has grudgingly admired in Nora and can respect here, just a little. Even if he is a low-life scheming rat, which is exactly what Nick calls him when he returns with his secrets, flanked by his lovers.

“But I can see why you did it, so. I won’t throw you to the dogs just yet. But if there are any other skeletons…”

“There aren’t. Thank you for your understanding, Nick,” DiMA says in that soft voice of his, sounding just a little stung. “I only did what I thought was best. I did not wish to cause harm, to anyone. All I want is for people to be safe.”

“Except poor Captain Avery,” Nick grumbles. “I’ll keep your secret, but I’m not getting involved in anything with Tektus. We aren’t guns for hire. You can find someone else to do your dirty work.”

“You needn’t concern yourself with it,” DiMA says, almost eagerly, and when he reaches over to put a hand on Nick’s shoulder he’d almost call his expression _glad_ , like he’s never been happier to partially salvage a quasi-sibling relationship. “Do you have any other business on the island? Perhaps we might meet again before... before you have to leave. I have missed you, Nick.”

“As it happens, I have another case to look into. So we’ll probably be here for another few days. And Kasumi’s agreed to go home to her family, so we’ll doubtless swing by to pick her up.” Nick can’t help the nasty little emphasis he puts on _family_ , though it doesn’t feel good when DiMA’s face crumples, just a bit. He squashes the desire to apologise down with a hearty reminder that the synth is a rotten murderer and a liar, and any crumpling is just another manipulation tactic.

It doesn’t entirely work.

“It is good to meet you, though, after all this time. I thought the Institute threw me out, ya see. A discarded project they decided they didn’t want anymore. It’s nice to know that I was liked enough by someone to help me get out.”

He feels John’s hand in his at the admission, would definitely be blushing by now if he was human. He registers the raising of DiMA’s brow plates, the quirk of his lips when Danse edges closer on his other side to offer comfort with a touch to the small of Nick’s back.

“It seems you’re very much wanted,” DiMA says. “I am glad. And you’re always welcome here, Nick, if you ever find yourself out this way again.”

Nick nods, thinking that if he comes to Far Harbor again in a hundred years it’ll be too soon. He turns to go, hoping the others will follow him with little fuss.

“Wait!” DiMA cries. “Nick. Before you go... as a token of my gratitude, if you wanted a place to store your memories, I could show you how to rig up some hardware, or you could offload them here, if you wished.”

By all rights, the next words out of his mouth should be _I’d trust a behemoth with my memories before I’d trust you_ but Hancock’s looking at him in that knowing way he has, head cocked in the other synth’s direction, and before he can protest Nick finds himself agreeing. The concession - and the delighted look on DiMA’s face - is worth it, if he knows he won’t lose the way John first skipped up to him at his office, all blonde curls and acerbic wit and vitriol for his brother; how Danse held his hand that first night they shared a sleeping space; how relieved he was when they both came for him with gentle touches and so much care after his stint as an Institute hostage.

And as they leave Acadia behind, hand in hand, Nick feels a surge of gratitude so strong it almost bowls him over.

“So I’m seein’ a lotta awkward family dinners in your future,” John says as they wind back down the fog-cloaked trail to the port, where their room and bed waits for them. “Reckon the two of you’ll get on like a house on fire after he drops the benevolent leader act.”

“I don’t know,” Nick replies. “He... wasn’t anything like what I was expecting.”

“But he’s family, though, right?” Hancock presses, and call it the detective in him but Nick senses something, lurking a little ways under the surface. He pauses, tilts his head to look Hancock in the face.

“You think I wanna stay,” he says, slowly. “You do, don’t you? You think I’ll leave the two of you to take Kasumi home and stay here with DiMA.”

“It... crossed my mind.” Hancock’s embarrassed now, kicking at a pebble under his feet with studious concentration. “Wouldn’t blame you for wantin’ a relationship with your brother.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Nick says, mechanical heart hurting for him. “You’re my family. You and Danse. It was good to get answers to some of my questions, and I guess to make a new... acquaintance, but I sure as hell ain’t upping sticks to live in this murky hellhole for the rest of my life.”

Relief washes over Hancock’s face like a storm passing, and Nick can’t help but pull him close, just to press their foreheads together. He draws Danse in too with a free hand and the three of them stand together in the middle of the road, letting the fog wrap around them like a cloak, breathing as one.

* * *

“You’re so used to people leaving you, aren’t you?”

Danse’s voice startles Hancock out of the contemplative reverie he’d let the beat of the rain lull him into. He and Danse are out on the end of the pier while Nick’s finishing out an investigation he and Danse started at some old hotel, watching their boat bob up and down on the sea and what’s left of the sun disappear below the horizon, muggy and faint. Hancock wishes for the stench and bustle of Goodneighbor, fringed by skyscrapers and the radioactive pull of the crater, away from the roiling nerves takin’ up space in his belly since they arrived on this damn island.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, innocent as anything. He takes a swig from the bottle of Vim he’s been draining slowly over the past half hour and doesn’t look his lover in the eye.

“You do. And you shouldn’t be. Used to it, I mean. The people who abandoned you - your brother, whoever you slept with in the past - they didn’t deserve you. They had no idea what they were missing out on.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure they did, sunshine. Pretty sure they saw it and started runnin’.”

“No. John, you’re-“ Danse pulls in a deep breath, plucks the Vim bottle from Hancock’s grasp and places it on the fence with a trembling hand. “Look at me, please. You’re _everything._ There’s so much about you that I love, John Hancock. Your tenacity. Your kindness, even when people don’t deserve it. How gentle you can be when you put your mind to it, and how fierce you can be when you don’t. How you won’t take any shit, and you won’t let the people you care for take it either. You’re wonderful. And anyone who doesn’t see that is an idiot. Trust me, I know. I used to be one.”

A faint part of Hancock can’t believe that it’s Paladin Danse, standing here saying this to him. It all still feels like a fever dream, something he conjured up at the mercy of the strongest Ultrajet. He feels tears prickle at the back of his eyes, grits his teeth and forces them away with determination mustered from the deepest depths of himself. And then he makes himself look his lover in the face and feels them coming regardless.

“If you were anyone else, I’d take you upstairs and undress you so slowly you’d hardly notice it was happening,” Danse says, stepping close enough to loom over Hancock, circling both his wrists with the index finger and thumb of one large hand. “I’d trail kisses up your chest and to your neck and take you apart piece - by - piece. I’d show you just how loved you are, John, because it’s true. And then I’d fuck you slow and soft until you _begged_ for release.”

“Careful, sunshine,” Hancock warns. “Don’t want to have to explain _this_ to the locals.” He gestures to his groin, where his own arousal is showing already, brought out by Danse’s wholly unexpected soliloquy. Hancock’s never heard him quite so eloquent before. He loves him, this ridiculous, brave soldier.

“But you’re not anyone else,” Danse continues, unaffected. “And I know how you hate to be vulnerable. So we’ll leave that for the morning, when the sun’s just coming up, when it doesn’t feel quite real. As for now - how about you take _me_ upstairs and have your wicked way with me?”

“Oh, fuck yeah.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Hancock has Danse just where he wants him. Which happens to be lying prone in the centre of the bed, with ropes binding his legs together and pinning his arms to his sides. There’s enough of it that Danse can barely move, criss-crossing across his torso and leaving his stiff, leaking cock bulging out between the bonds. He’d begged to be blindfolded and Hancock hadn’t put up much of a fight, just tied the cloth securely around his eyes and pressed kisses to where his eyelids would be under the fabric. Hancock, for his part, is still fully clothed except for his coat and hat, feels powerful this way, looking down on his love naked beneath him.

“You look delectable,” Hancock breathes, watching the big man’s chest rising and falling with the shape of his own exhalation. “The things I want to do to you, Danse.”

The synth seems to have lost the power of speech again, only manages a needy little _hngh_ and a shudder that Hancock can feel reverberate through the mattress.

Slowly, teasing, Hancock reaches out and gives that pretty prick a stroke. Swirls his thumb around the head, spreading pre-cum down the shaft and going to cup Danse’s balls, already drawn tight and heavy in his hand.

“I got a surprise for ya,” he whispers, pitching his voice lower than usual. “Something we haven’t tried yet.” He reaches for it, the shiny metal plug, slathers it in lube before kneeling over Danse on the bed. It’s not huge, but it’ll be big enough for him to feel the stretch. Hancock gives him a finger first, though with the ropes the angle’s a little awkward, probing his rim gently before forging deeper, drawing a cry from the other man’s lips. Then he lets the cool metal rest against the most intimate part of his lover, applying just the slightest pressure, so Danse can feel the intrusion.

“Give me a colour, sweetheart,” Hancock orders.

The ‘green’ comes immediately, so he lets himself give a little more pressure, watching Danse open up for him. Hears his breathy little pants and the cuss as the plug slides home, leaving a pretty little jewelled handle poking out of his ass.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” Danse asks, sounding like he’s just run a marathon. “Oh, God, John, that feels so strange-“

“That’s a butt plug, love,” John chuckles. “You like it?”

“I- _yeah_. Shit. It’s weird. Full. I, John, please-“

“What do you need, baby?”

“Just touch me, please. Please, Hancock, sir, please-“

Hancock gives in, drags his hand up Danse’s cock once more, presses a feather-light kiss to the tip. “I forgot to mention,” he says casually while he gives it another stroke, barely touching, “you’re not allowed to come. Not tonight.”

“ _What_?” Danse sounds so affronted he can’t help but laugh.

“I want you to wait,” Hancock says. “Until morning. So you’ll be wound up all night waiting for round two. I want you hard and aching all night long, sweetheart. And maybe I’ll leave the plug in, for good measure.”

“You _fucker_ ,” Danse grunts, and Hancock gives him a hard swat on the outside of a thigh to shut him up.

“Language, sweetheart. Where’s that Brotherhood decorum, huh?” This he punctuates with another stroke of Danse’s cock, rougher this time. He starts up a rhythm, fast and pounding and twisting at the head, until Danse is bucking up into the circle of his fist and just as the man’s keens pitch higher he stops abruptly, yanking his hand away and letting those hips stutter into nothing.

“Aargh!” Danse cries. “Please. Please, please let me come. I’ll do anything.”

“Nuh-uh. Not yet, sweetheart. But you know what you can do for me? You could let me fuck that pretty little mouth of yours.”

“Yes, anything, please,” Danse begs. Hancock arranges himself over the bigger man’s body so he can grip the headboard, undoes his fly and lines up his own hard prick with the synth’s mouth, so the head of it runs over Danse’s spit-wet lips.

“You want to taste me, beautiful? You want me to fuck your mouth until my cock is all you can think about, huh?”

“Yeah,” Danse agrees, already questing blindly forwards. “Let me, sir, please?”

“How could I say no to you when you’re being so polite about it?” Hancock asks, and lets himself thrust into Danse’s mouth. Not too deep, not at first, letting him adjust to the girth and texture. It’s been a little while since they did it this way. Hancock establishes a new rhythm, slow and steady, and when he thinks Danse is ready he pushes a little deeper, grazing against the roof of his mouth, pulling back when he begins to gag.

“Sorry, baby. You okay?”

“Don’t stop,” Danse insists, mouth reaching greedily for his erection. “I don’t mind it.”

“A rousing endorsement,” Hancock comments, letting snark colour his tone. “You don’t gotta push yourself, sweetheart, we’ve been over this. And it won’t change your chances of coming, anyway.”

“I like it,” Danse laughs, shaking the bed with it. “Honest. I like… being filled, like this.”

Hancock takes his word for it, slips his cock back into Danse’s mouth and loses himself to the pulse and thrum of it, taking his pleasure from the other man, spread so willingly beneath him. If he looks down between their bodies he can see how hard Danse still is, straining almost purple against the dirty white sheets. He reaches a hand behind to tug at his dick, brings him to the edge twice more while his own cock is still in Danse’s mouth, cutting off the touches to increasingly frustrated groans from the synth.

“I’m almost there, sunshine. You want this in your mouth?” Hancock’s own voice is reedy with need, head tossed back in ecstasy.

“Mmm-hmm,” Danse hums. A few more thrusts and he’s there, pulsing hot and thick into Danse’s mouth. He takes it like a champ, swallows, licks Hancock clean with a few stripes of that clever tongue while he trembles with oversensitivity.

“Love you,” Danse pants while he gets his breath back.

“I love you,” Hancock says as he climbs off. “But you still don’t get to come.” He knows how close Danse is by now, that another couple strokes of his cock would probably get him off no problem. Instead he prods at the plug still snug between his asscheeks, feeling Danse’s body coil like a spring in response when he tugs it just a little ways out and presses back in.

“Think you can hold out for me? One more edge. Then I’ll untie you, ‘kay?”

“I don’t- Hancock, I can’t-“

“I think you can, soldier. Deep breath for me now, yeah?” He watches while Danse obeys, the motion wracking his lungs. “Just one more.”

He wraps his right hand gently around Danse’s prick, holds it steady while the man adjusts. Then he delivers a strong upward stroke, brushing his thumb over the head, waiting for Danse’s cries to subside before he repeats the motion.

“You’re doing so well for me, sweetheart,” he praises, not letting up with his hand. Sneakily, he lowers his head to suck just the tip of him into his mouth, and Danse bucks so wildly it’s a wonder they don’t both go tumbling off the bed.

“Stop, stop!” Danse screams. “I’m going to come. Please, shit, sir, fuck, I don’t think I can-“

Hancock pulls off, proud of the way Danse is still so desperate, still so eager to please. “You’re amazing,” he tells him. “Gorgeous. I’m gonna untie you now, alright?”

“Wait,” Danse says. “Just… give me a minute.”

Hancock chuckles at that, sits back on his haunches and soaks up the sex-sweet atmosphere. The rain is coming down heavy against the windowpane now, and he hopes Nick’s on his way back so they can have dinner together again, cosy against the coming storm.

“I’d lick your boots clean, if you asked,” he says after a moment. Hancock feels himself frown at the comment, wondering if he’s fucked Danse into delirium.

“Huh?”

“Oh. Nothing. Didn’t mean to say that part out loud.”

Hancock laughs. “Okay, sweetheart. Anything you want.”

Eventually Danse consents to being let up, so Hancock carefully undoes the blindfold and tugs it away from where it’s tangled in his hair. He sets about doing the same with the ropes, soothing the scarlet marks marring the other man’s flesh with nibbling kisses that trail close enough to his groin that Danse shudders and bats him away with a freed hand. He’s still achingly hard.

“Not if you don’t want me to come,” he says, laughing. Hancock kisses him on the mouth then, tasting the tang of his own release.

“Did you mean it, about… keeping this in?” Danse asks, jerking a hesitant gesture at the plug still seated so deep inside him.

“Don't get shy on me now, darlin’,” John teases. “Yeah, I meant it. That okay with you?”

The question is met with arms snaking around his shoulders, pulling him close, and they rest there breathing heavily together for a few minutes, enough time for Danse’s prick to soften a little.

When Nick gets back he’s dressed again and sitting at the table, shifting uncomfortably and making small noises of complaint tinged with thready arousal. When John sneaks his hand under the table and drags it up Danse’s thigh he finds the man hard again, smirks when Danse nearly jumps out of his seat at the contact.

“What’d I miss?” Nick asks, dumping his hat on the table and loosening his tie.

“Ah, not much,” Hancock says, arms folded behind his head and chair tipped back, grinning. “Tell us about your case. Did you figure out whodunnit?”

“Eventually,” Nick says, and regales them with a tale festooned with robobrains wielding paintbrushes and baseball bats. Hancock’s sorry he missed it. While he tells it, Hancock slides his hand casually up and down Danse’s thigh. Just as he thinks the man can’t burn any deeper scarlet, Danse surprises him again. It’s delicious, the slow drag of it all, knowing how tight his pants are getting, knowing how that little plug must feel burrowed up inside him.

They eat, after a while, and Nick talks Hancock down from shooting up a lil’ Psycho and going to bait some more sea monsters. He has a drink instead, some bourbon brought up from the bar downstairs, and then they all three of them strip naked and slip under the covers, warmed by body heat and Nick’s internal mechanisms, overexerted after a hard day’s sleuthing. Hancock’s so grateful that they’re here, that he’s sandwiched between them and loved, so loved, and he lets the thought carry him into sleep.

* * *

The sun crests the horizon in the early hours, painting the mist a pale yellow and casting golden rays of light into the room. Danse wakes first, nudged out of slumber by the unforgiving metal plug clenched up his ass. He lets himself stretch languidly, feels his cheeks tense around the intrusion, cock thickening at the thought of it. He flips softly on his side, finding Hancock curled up beside him and Nick on his other side, eyes closed, as close to sleep as the synth ever gets. The ghoul’s head is pillowed on Valentine’s bare chest, one hand tucked between them and the other resting on Danse’s thigh.

He’s loath to wake them, pretty as they both are, but the plug really is insistent. And besides, he has a promise to keep. He wants to see Hancock come undone under his hands, wants to show him how needed he is, here between the two of them, and he’s sure Nick won’t object to helping.

He presses a kiss to Hancock’s ridged shoulder, and when the man blinks dark eyes up at him whispers, “Morning, my love.” The endearment lights something up in John’s face that’s worth the early morning, worth the restless night, worth the fog and the boat and the island all three.

“Sleep well?” Hancock asks, still teasing. Nick’s eyes open at this, and he rolls himself over, propped up on an elbow.

“No,” Danse grumbles, biting gently over where his lips are still attached to Hancock’s skin. The ghoul shivers at the touch.

Danse rearranges himself so Nick can get closer, and they both get a hand in his wires, already clumsy with sleep and urgency. Valentine hardly seems to mind, curling up into the touch, steam already starting to pour from the hole in his neck. “God, Nick, you’re…” Danse trails off, can’t find the words. Just kisses him, slow and soft, while his thumb scrapes against the plastic plating and nudges against the solder at the joint.

Nick’s own hands, meanwhile, are questing under the covers to wrap around them both. Danse bucks into his grip, already balanced precariously over a chasm he’s not entirely sure he’s allowed to fall over yet. He holds himself back, sucks a breath in through his teeth, and when Nick’s hand wanders lower to probe at his ass lets out a cry he had no chance of keeping in.

“What’s this?” Nick asks, silicone finger easing its way around the flared rim of the plug. “Ah, this why you were so quiet on me last night, then?”

“Sorry,” Danse grits out.

“Nothin’ to apologise for, doll,” Nick says, and like he knows what infernal game Hancock has been playing, abruptly stops touching Danse’s prick.

“Can I- I need to-“

“Let me,” Hancock says without needing to ask. He eases himself out of Valentine’s grip for a second to get a grip on the plug’s handle, tugging gently, and despite the care the stretch is just the other side of painful and drags a frantic squeal from Danse’s throat. It warms him, the burn, fills him up where the plug’s removal has left him bereft. He can feel last night’s lube sticky between his asscheeks, where the tip of John’s finger has just eased itself inside, barely there, and his throbbing prick pulses furiously.

“You did good, sunshine,” Hancock tells him, voice nearly a purr. Danse huffs out a breath, then flips them both suddenly so he’s poised over his lover, stroking a reverent hand down the ghoul’s face.

“I promised I’d take you apart,” Danse whispers. “And I think I’ll finally come, just when I’m buried inside you. But… Nick gets to go first.”

“You devil,” Hancock tells him when Danse rolls away again, but he sucks one of Valentine’s fingers into his mouth anyway, fumbles for purchase inside a hole at the synth’s shoulder. His most sensitive wires are buried deep in his neck, but they’ve discovered the shoulder port is a good way to get things started, build up an irresistible tension that usually has Nick begging for it soon enough.

“I keep saying you’ll be the death of me,” Nick gasps while Danse delivers a particularly savage twist to his favourite wires, twining them together - not tight enough to cause pain, but just enough that Nick’s hips buck up into empty space. Danse contorts so he can scratch lightly at the plastic covering his groin, wondering just how much feeling Valentine has down there. Enough, apparently, because after a few minutes of this treatment he screams loud enough to be heard downstairs, and his internal fans stop whirring for a good five seconds.

“Ah, God, that’s-“

It seems none of them are much good at finishing sentences today, Danse muses while Nick recovers, propped up on a mound of pillows. “Good?” he asks without needing to wait for an answer. The blissed-out look on the older synth’s face says it all.

Now it’s John’s turn. Danse does as promised, beginning at the foot of the bed and gently pressing kisses to Hancock’s ankles, his calves, up to his thighs. He skips over his groin straight to the concave hollow of his stomach, grazes his lips across his navel and biting gently at each nipple. His collarbone, next, and then up his neck to a strong jaw. One kiss on the tip of his nose and another for each eyelid, and then one lingering at his forehead. Nick watches them, still exhaling steam, and when Danse darts to the table to fetch the lube, strokes a hand across Hancock’s neck and laps at one of the radioactive pockmarks Danse loves.

“You ready for this, my love?” Danse asks when he’s slicked himself. How long he’ll last after last night, he wouldn’t like to bet, but he’s gotten through harder endurance tests. Almost.

“Always, sunshine,” Hancock remarks. “Show me whatcha got.”

“You’re such a tease,” Nick grumbles.

“He won’t be in a second,” Danse promises, slipping a couple fingers into John’s ass and feeling him squirm around them. He gets him stretched, avoiding his prostate for now, just stroking his nails against his walls. “You look so perfect for me right now.”

When he’s ready, Danse presses inside. Gives him an inch and then another, and doesn’t let up until his entire length is sheathed inside his lover, pulsing tight around him. The pressure of it is almost too much, and Danse doesn’t entirely trust himself to start moving, but he’s determined for Hancock to get off first. Wants to feel him squeeze around his cock while he comes.

Nick helps with a tight fist around Hancock’s dick, whispering encouragement to them both, and despite John’s wealth of sexual experience he’s bucking between the two focal points within minutes, crying out both their names while he ruts helplessly, wanton, on the bed.

“Beautiful,” Danse whispers. “Come for me, John.”

Hancock doesn’t need to be asked twice. He twitches once, violently, and then his spend is painted across Danse’s stomach and the synth is following him right over into the most welcome oblivion. The release of it nearly makes him cry, so sweet after so long lingering on the edge, and they’re both there to stroke his back while he comes down from it, extricating himself carefully from the tug of Hancock’s body.

“Well, if that’s what being vulnerable feels like, maybe I ought to try it more often,” John says. Danse grins, taking both their hands, loving them more than the room can contain, more than he can fathom.

“You’re safe with us,” Nick promises. “You don’t ever have to pretend with us, darlin’.”

“I know,” Hancock admits. He yawns, stretches his arms high above his head, then says, “I almost don’t wanna leave here.”

“Mmm, I know what you mean,” Danse agrees, laughing at Nick’s wince.

“Yeah, well. We have to get Kasumi home to her parents sooner rather than later, in case she changes her mind again. And I don’t wanna leave Ellie too long on her own, either. She’ll be swamped with new cases by now.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Hancock says, tapping him gently on the nose. “We get it, there’s only room for one prototype synth around here. And, honestly, there’s only so many mutated sea creatures a guy can take before he starts longin’ for muties and raiders again.”

“Plenty muties on this island,” Nick says with a shiver. “Glad we didn’t venture any further in, really. I don’t much wanna find out what else is lurking in that fog.”

“Well, there’s always next year,” Hancock tells him. “We’ll be hankering for another vacation by then. And you’ll be inviting DiMA over for Christmas, right? With you bein’ family and all?”

Nick thumps him with a pillow. Hancock swings it back at him, thwacking Danse on the arm with the motion, and he leaps into the fray, until the room is strewn with feathers and laughter and sunlight, easing its way through the fog.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not lying this time, it is ACTUALLY finished!
> 
> 1 comment = 1 nose boop for my cat


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